SimCity Mac Release

Aug 29, 2013

Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis

Welcome to SimCity, Mac Mayors. I’m Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis and I wanted to thank you for patiently waiting to play SimCity. We’ve been working hard since we launched SimCity on the PC, so I also wanted to tell you about all the things we’ve added in the past few months. Before I do that, let’s talk a little bit about the Mac version.

First off, when you purchase SimCity, you gain access to both the PC and Mac versions. And if you already own SimCity for PC, you will find that the Mac version is automatically accessible through Origin. SimCity for Mac is digital-only release. There is no separate disk version at this time. Both the PC and Mac version share the same servers, so you can play with your friends no matter what platform they are on. This also means that both versions will receive the game updates simultaneously.

Now let’s talk about some of the improvements and additions we’ve made to SimCity in the past few months. In total, we’ve released seven major updates with a variety of fixes and improvements. If you’d like to learn more, you can read all the notes here. Here are some of the highlights from these updates:

New Region Maps Edgewater Bay/Granite Lake: In Update 4, we released our first free region map, Edgewater Bay. This map is unique as it contains seven city sites in one cluster surrounded by a beautiful bay with one Great Work site in the center. It also contains a lot of flat land, in case you want to build a bustling casino city or a tourist haven. In Update 6, we released our second free region map, Granite Lake, containing two clusters of cities connected by a large lake and many, many mountains. If you like a challenge, this is the region for you.

SimCity Launch Park: This park was also released with Update 4 and is dedicated to our early adopters, like you.

New Hotels: With Update 3, we added 24 new hotel buildings to give cities more variety.

Improved Region Wall Chat: Update 5 improved the region wall chat with a new look and functionality. Chat now functions more efficiently. Time stamps show on chat messages on rollover. Regional events are easier to read and can be toggled on and off.

RCI Building Variations: To add even more variety to your cities, we added 84 height and color variations to the residential, commercial, and industrial buildings.

We also recently released Update 7, which focused on traffic improvements. Along with that it also added:

Raise/Lower Road Tool: This tool allows you to raise and lower roads, giving you the option to build both bridges and tunnels in your city to not only give you new ways to design your city, but also give you more options to control your traffic.

Houses of Worship Set: The free Houses of Worship set includes 4 brand new buildings that increase the happiness of your Sims. In addition to the righteous emotional boost, the House of Worship buildings are free to place and do not require any maintenance (though you are limited to four buildings in a city). The House of Worship buildings are also available to all wealth levels, so anyone can visit.

As you can see, now is a good time to start building. Look forward to seeing your cities!

Download the Origin client. Once it is installed and you have logged in: click on your Origin ID at the top-right-hand corner, click on "Edit My Profile", then finally click on the "Redeem Product Code" button.

Hello! I've bought a SimCity4 Digital Deluxe Edition. I just received a confirmation of an order from orders@origin.com 1,5 hours ago but I still can not download the product. Money was successfully charged from credit card. What shall i do?

EVERYONE: You can download and pre load the same now. At 10am Pacific time, the game will come online to play live. You download through Origin.com. Also, you buy the PC and Mac version at the same time. When you buy the PC version, you get automatic access to the Mac version.

Im confused are the PC/Mac all in one bundle or can you purchase simcity for the mac individually....im confused when i go to buy it it is PC/Mac but then it says only available for pre order on mac??? sooooo yeahhh

IMAGINE A WORLD where EA / Maxis comes through! Well its not this one. First, the game won't even open anymore: opened at 13:02 ET and played slowly for a bit. Restarted computer and now it can't even open. I imagine it has to do with server issues which realistically should be expected given the history with this game. Shouldn't happen, but will. RUBBISH skank of a company.

Performance was ... marginal at best. I'm running a brand new MBP 10.8.4 on full settings and it was like using a ::gasp:: dial up connection. Turned the settings down, and acceptable although not pretty performance.